Joe Barton

Yesterday I wrote Reps. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Darryl Issa (R-CA), the chair and ranking member of the House Government Oversight Committee, urging a thorough investigation of both Google Street View and the FTC’s recent conduct during its investigation of the program. Click here for a 6-page pdf of the letter that includes additional background on Google’s extensive and close lobbying connections with the Obama Administration.

As part of Google’s “Street View” operation, fleets of specially outfitted cars drove through multiple countries collecting photos, video and, as Google now admits, sensitive personal information from WiFi connections. Yet in late October, the Federal Trade Commission abruptly ended its investigation of “Street View” – a decision that came on the heels not only of Google’s admission that its surveillance was much more serious than previously disclosed but only days after a $30,000-a-head fundraiser for President Obama at the home of a Google executive.

Congressional advocates of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill employed bribery to build support for this legislation when they co-opted several corporations by giving them free carbon dioxide emission credits. However, many businesses are still balking at lending support to a bill that will impose a crushing energy tax on the American people and cost the economy trillions of dollars. Since bribery didn't work with these recalcitrant companies, Waxman-Markey supporters are trying intimidation.